Kendo terminology: Kendo in Japanese

We have words in kendo terminology that we don't use daily in Japan. Kendo terminology consists of :

- words just used in kendo
- old Japanese words and
- words that all Japanese people know.

We should definitely know some of the words such as rei and words for a sword.

There are some words that you don't have to be able to pronounce but that are useful to know.

So please visit here time to time so that you can find some new words that would help you understand kendo better.

The following is a list of the kendo terminology. If you are looking for a particular word, use the "find" function. The easiest way to use the find function is:

- press "ctrl" and "F" on your keyboard.
- a little pop-up window shows up (Internet Explorer) or
- a little box appears at the bottom of the browser (Firefox)
- type a word/phrase you are looking for in a box
- click "find"

You can find a word/phrase you are looking for if this page contains it.

I will add kendo terminology constantly and try to interact with other pages so that you can have have a better grasp of the meaning.

The followings are kendo terminology that I currently have.

Time is money. Get what you want, learn what you want, and come back and learn some more to improve the world kendo!

- At the beginning of training, right before we train with a training partner we always say this word. After we are done training, we say "Arigato Gozaimashita". This is more well-known. But let me analyse the terms a bit.

- Sashimen was used for a men strike without the cutting motion. Thus, it was considered to be a bad men strike. However, nowadays people use this word referred to as a small men. Find out more about the term, sashimen.

- We all know what rei is, don't we? But do we know ALL of rei? Are you sure that you know every single meaning of rei? If you only know only one meaning of rei, you probably want to go and read this article.

- The way of the sword. That is kendo. But in Japanese there are many ways of saying "sword" and we have different kanji (Japanese character) for "sword". You don't have to remember these but it is helpful to know what they are.

- We have mainly 3 different distances. This is the very basic distance of kendo. It is critical to understand the concept of this distance; otherwise, you just don't know why people keep telling you to stay in this distance!

- Probably this term is too difficult for children. Many Japanese children and young people may not know this word since we don't use this term in daily Japanese. But if you do kendo, you probably should know this word.

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